I never saw the FAO Schwarz flagship store in New York City until I was an adult. So I wasn’t as impressed by the splendor of the place as I might have been at a younger age. Like everything else in New York City, the toy store had been featured in so many movies that I felt as if I’d already been there when I walked through the glittering front door. But then, . . .

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A place of excitement and hope filled giggles, brightly packaged board games, multicolored Slinkys and gigantic realistic dinosaurs. Who doesn’t love toy stores?
Gorgeous sleek Barbie dolls with pink colored sports cars and jet-black prancing ponies decorate the shelves. Rows upon rows of fantastical themed Lego sets beckon to our future builders. Tricycles and bicycles glisten and sparkle enticing youthful limbs to spin some wheels in the days to come. Cheers to the toy store, seldom can a store be found that can fulfill such expectant joy.

I rushed into the brightly lit store-piles of plush stuffed animals of lions and bears fell in a pyramid before my eyes. I was enraptured, but the voice of my great-grandfather echoed behind me.
“Hurry up-pick one toy and then we’re leaving.”
I knew the moment I saw her, settling on a shelf, collecting glitter and magic. Her name was Jasmine—from the movie Aladdin, and as a child, I had been enchanted. And here was my chance, to embark on a journey of love and virtue.
As I held her up, my grandfather smiled, disgruntled and said, “Let’s go home.”

From outside, the big toy store in our city was less attractive to my two-and-a-half-years old son than a fashion store. The latter had big screens with bright colored lights and the former was cluttered with so many things that you could not look through. The fashion store was first on our way and my son hurried inside being sure that we could buy something for him there. On my argument, that the things there were too big for him, he said: “But I am big! I reach up into the air!”